Daily Times

KARACHI: The Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) has brushed aside rumours regarding outbreak of bird flu (H5N1) in Pakistan.

Talking to Daily Times, PPA central convener Abdul Maroof Siddiqui said there were general aliments in poultry birds due to prevailing weather situation, however, chance of bird flu outbreak in Pakistan was very minimal.

The government has already sent teams of livestock and poultry division in several parts of the country, including Mirpur and Dhadiyal in Azad Jammu Kashmir (AJK), bordering Indian Kashmir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and other areas. “This is routine check of birds after onset of change in weather,” he said

He said outbreak of bird flu in India and Iran occur usually due to the migratory birds, which travel from Europe through Russia, Siberian region, Turkey and Iran into India.

“Investment in our poultry trade is more than Rs 90 billion and poultry business will suffer losses of billions of rupees if such rumours are circulated. So far not even a single case of H5N1 has been reported, but in 2003 around one million birds, mostly chickens, perished after an outbreak of the less virulent H9 and H7 forms of bird flu,” he said.

Siddiqui was of the opinion that pig-farming and turkey farming was the main source of spreading this virus in poultry and in those societies where this practice was going on, the spread was more imminent, but presence of the virus in south Asia was not much possible.

Commenting on fear in public about H5N1, he said that it was not alarming for common people, as it could not directly infect human beings via poultry. He said PPA would not camouflage the facts for the sake of economic benefits in case any about bird flu is reported.

He stated millions of samples were collected at random from different parts of Punjab and Sindh for laboratory tests, but not a single clue of H5N1 had been found.

Usually consumers’ confidence in commercial poultry meat declines with such reports, besides reduction in retail prices of poultry.

“Pakistan is still free from bird flu as our breeding and layer birds at the farms are totally vaccinated on regular basis.

Around 60 percent clients of poultry are hotels and commercial food outlet while 25 percent are domestic consumers in the country, he added. He said proper cooking of chickens at or above 70 centigrade could make the poultry meat safer.

He said Pakistan had the capacity to diagnose bird virus and a number of laboratories in different parts of the country were already working.

The western economic factors were creating fear in common people against poultry meat otherwise H5N1 virus was not as lethal as it was thought to be.

Another senior member of the PPA said there was no threat of bird flu in Pakistan and the concern being shown in the country in this regard was baseless.